No Apologies

George Carlin, At 62, Shows No Signs Of Pulling His Punches

May 08, 1999|By ROGER CATLIN Courant Rock Critic

They call them comedy killers -- events so sorrowful, there's no use for comedians to bother even trying to get people to laugh. JFK's assassination was one. Most would think that the massacre in Littleton, Colo., would be another.

But George Carlin was looking forward to his next show. He was waiting to see the reaction he'd get to a piece he first used on his dark, most recent HBO comedy special, ``You Are All Diseased,'' first broadcast three months ago.

``I do a line about guys going into schools and shooting kids,'' Carlin says from Los Angeles. ``I say, `When I was in school and someone came in and shot a few kids during math class, we'd go right on with our arithmetic: 35 minus four equals 31.''

It evokes nervous laughter even at the best of times. ``The events gave it a lot of edge,'' he says. ``I knew it'd be touchy to do. But I enjoy making people uncomfortable.''

Carlin has been doing that sort of insurrectionist material for 40 years.

And rather than being rebuked, he's at another career high. His HBO specials -- ``You Are All Diseased'' was his 11th -- get huge ratings. His book ``Brain Droppings'' sold 300,000 in hardback as a New York Times bestseller and another 300,000 in paperback. His concerts continue to be sellouts.

He turns 62 Wednesday and speaks to the National Press Club in Washington Thursday. Next Saturday Carlin will headline a show at the SNET Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford.

``I've been lucky and have had a real resurgence in the last 10 years,'' he says, ``through sheer persistence. And I care about the quality of what I do.

``I've also had a trend toward being more personal about the subject matter. I'm speaking more from what bothers me. But I'm never looking for answers. I prefer the other direction, happy to see the culture swirl around the drain. I root for the early demise of species.''

He begins to echo the pessimism of late-period Mark Twain, although he says, ``You can be a little bleaker on the page than on the stage.''

In all of it, Carlin says he's not out for the easy laugh by any means. ``I'm always aware you're trying to engage people's imagination and entertain that way,'' Carlin says. ``It's not always laughter that you're after. I want them to think about something you thought of. It might not evolve into laughter. And if it does, it may only be knowing laughter.''

For years, Carlin's work has moved into the area of things that make you say hmmm.

``I've always drawn from three areas,'' Carlin says. ``The English language -- pure fun with words, analyzing the way we speak -- is one. Another one is the everyday world we all live in -- being on an elevator, on the phone or buying shoes.

``Then there's the larger world of issues. I don't think of it as topical. It's more things like an abortion, war, love that are timeless yet have a feeling of currency.''

If Carlin sounds as fresh as this morning's paper, it's because a lot of his jokes were lifted in a famous plagiarism that led to the firing of Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle last summer. Barnicle claimed that the jokes came from a bartender. But then Globe editors confronted him with the fact that they sounded nearly verbatim from Carlin's ``Brain Droppings.''

``Whoever did it, whether it was him or a source he quoted, changed each one to make it worse,'' Carlin says.

The lifting of material didn't particularly upset Carlin, though he says, ``Generally people make an attribution, even if it's incorrect.'' Carlin called the columnist, though. ``I told him: `Don't expect trouble from me. I'm just going to watch this happen.'''

As it turned out, the Globe asked Barnicle to resign when someone dug up a tape of a TV show in which Barnicle endorsed the book he earlier said he knew nothing about. Barnicle refused to resign then but did so a few weeks later, when he admitted he fabricated characters in a 1995 column about two boys with cancer.

Carlin says he has no opinion on whether Barnicle should have been canned. ``First of all, I'm not fond of big-city tough-guy reporters who hang out with the police department. I'm uncomfortable with that image. And he was very self-righteous about American values, `our boys' and that kind of thing.''

The main effect of the controversy, he says, was boosting his book back into the Top 10 bestseller list. ``I got some extra mileage out of it.''

Carlin enjoys having fans of all ages, including very small children, who have seen his recurring role as Mr. Conductor in ``Shining Time Station.''

No need to worry. Children never show up at his concerts by mistake.

``Airports is where that happens. And it's usually the parents who force the kid to come over and say hi. They never do it. Because I'm way too tall, for one thing. And I'm out of uniform. I'm always out of uniform.''